WebRTC

Friction or resistance is generally used to slow things down. In fact, a car's braking system is a great example of something very small - brake pads, reducing the momentum of a vehicle weighing thousands of pounds.

A learning curve is friction. Multiple ways to accomplish the same outcome causes friction. In technology, one example of friction was Microsoft Windows phones around the 2005 timeframe.

McDonald's is famous for asking customers if they want fries with their order and as a result, over the years, they have generated millions of dollars of extra profit. We can all learn a little something from this worldwide purveyor of fast food.

Far less tasty but far more profitable could be the sale of on-hold, music and messages to your customers buying a PBX, UC or UCaaS. Whether you sell Mitel, Avaya, Cisco or just about all other phone solutions, you can also sell an on-hold solution.

Recently, we had an exclusive phone interview with Mick Sakakeeny, Division President, Cloud Services at Spectrio LLC. We met the company at the recent Ideacom event in Washington, DC where Your's Truly was a keynote speaker.

Martello Technologies has become one of the more interesting players in the SD-WAN space - by purchasing Elfiq - one of the first if not the first players in the space. From there, they combined SD-WAN with service assurance... From quality management to remediation.

According to Tracy King, Director of Marketing, "The layer 2 approach makes it easier to install." She continued, "You just drop in the box and it works."

She continued by explaining the company has subsecond failovers, hybrid WAN solutions, a UC site qualification tool and more. Customers can see in advance how many calls the network can concurrently support.

In addition, they offer a STREAM VPN engine which encrypts per flow and offers zero-touch provisioning.

The LBX700 Link Balancer provides throughput of 800 Mbps, 512 VPN tunnels and support for up to 14 ISPs
Tracy explained there is no limit to how many sites which can be meshed with their new ATLAS SDWAN solution.

Sometimes you need to go backward to go forward is what we thought when we met for an exclusive interview with VTech execs to discuss a new line of products bringing together the best of Vtech with its recent acquisition, SNOM. The ET600 has the software stability and SNOM legacy with VTech desktop technology according to the company.

The new ErisTerminal VDP650 series cordless 4-line SIP phones are perfect for the small business market. By allowing cordless capability, extended range and SIP connectivity, these solutions give cost-saving benefits every business needs.

The VDP651 paired with a VDP650 base station is loaded with features such as DECT 6.0, seven days standby, four programmable LED backlit line keys, HD voice for the receiver and speakerphone.

Most importantly, they borrow from the past - and add key system functionality to the phone so every handset can display four virtual lines.

As resellers evolve from selling telecom hardware like PBXs to UCaaS, they often need help to figure out how to do it successfully. Beyond the financial challenges inherent in going from a CAPEX to a monthly recurring (MRR) model are the inherent difficulties in learning how to configure complete solutions which include the network and voice communications.

One company helping resellers and the channel making the switch is Jenne, Inc. They bill themselves as a truly value-added distributor according to Susan Elder, Senior Director of Marketing as she told us in an exclusive in-person interview.

In January of this year, TMCnet reported Jenne becoming a distributor of Zenitel Group. At the time, Patrick Howard, senior director of product management at Jenne said that Zenitel’s intelligent communication solutions for operational risk and resilience, as well as essential operational needs are critical to bridging the last mile in this market.

In February, we reported on a Jenne deal with Jive Communications. At the time, Patrick said, "Jenne’s high touch, fast response,’ model and UCaaS offerings will complement Jive’s scalable, flexible, and reliable cloud-based phone systems and unified communications services, and their stellar customer service."

Recently we wrote about how telecom resellers are becoming MSPs, providing UCaaS solutions on their own, without the need to rely on an OTT provider such as RingCentral or 8x8.

In our discussions with MSPs making the switch from reselling a hardware solution like Toshiba to providing service themselves, they tell us how happy they are. They are making great margins and have much more control over their destiny.

We just had an in-person interview with David L. Puckett, Director of Business Development at Yeastar and the opportunity just grew in our minds as we spoke.

The company has 100 engineers and recently devoted themselves to taking all their hardware smarts and converting it to software. The result is the Yeastar Cloud PBX which was launched a few months back at ITEXPO. It's a monster, based on the Yeastar Management Plane or YMP, supporting 100 PBX instances, 2,000 users, and 500 concurrent calls.

MSPs and resellers in telecom are going in three directions. The first is business as usual. They continue to sell boxes and/or cloud services. Sometimes they'll just refer the business to the UCaaS provider and other times, they'll do the install themselves.

As telecom consolidation continues, a wave of mid-sized carriers are expanding their channel programs to take advantage of the opportunity to benefit from changes to these programs at the "big carriers."

One such company is BullsEye Telecom. Their Channel Partner Programs offer three new opportunities for potential partners:

Referral Partner: best suited for IT consultants and those who are connected with organizations that may benefit from BullsEye’s full line of services.

MSP Program: ideal for Managed Service Providers, VARs and system integrators; provides an opportunity to grow a stable and predictable revenue stream by referring BullsEye’s portfolio of services to their clients.

Agent Channel: for technology solution providers with sub-agents or seasoned sales representatives with a track record of selling technology solutions throughout the U.S.

The ability to grow business services offerings – including VoIP, SD-WAN, Broadband and POTS – from a single provider

Dedicated, hands-on sales and marketing support to help drive business

In an exclusive in-person interview with Mark Sondergaard, national director of partner sales, BullsEye Telecom said, “With our robust offerings, industry-leading benefits and proven success system, we are laser-focused on helping our partners grow their businesses faster and more strategically than ever before.”

Mark explained they are adding pre-sales engineers, and have added 4-5 channel managers as well. He said they excel in providing multilocation service including POTs aggregation, broadband aggregation, various VoIP flavors and of course SD-WAN.

He told me, they are one of the few companies which can bring on a one-thousand location restaurant and first take control of the transferred numbers via a POTs to POTs transfer.

Two months back at ITEXPO/SDWAN Expo, Windstream aligned its brands to simply Windstream Enterprise and Windstream Wholesale. The company explained the new brand strategy reflects the transformation the organization is undertaking in response to the demands of the business market for a more agile, innovative network and communication service provider. The organization distinguishes itself by leveraging the latest technology and a highly agile, customer-centric culture that positions Windstream as a trusted partner to its Enterprise and Wholesale customers.

“Enterprise IT is going through a tectonic shift, driven by rapid migration to the cloud and adoption of new technologies to address evolving customer needs,” said Joseph Harding (above), executive vice president and chief marketing officer of Windstream Enterprise and Wholesale. “This transformation directly addresses the specific challenges facing businesses today who’ve learned that conventional approaches can’t keep pace with the requirements of the digital economy,” said Harding.

In 1997, years before Skype, Vonage and before Cisco discovered VoIP, VirtualPBX was invented. To say the company was early is an understatement. Hundreds or thousands of communications companies didn't make it through the various bubble bursts between then and now.

Now though, the company is facing intense pressure from well-funded competitors coming at them from numerous directions. Here is how they are differentiating.

In an exclusive interview with CEO Paul Hammond, we discussed the company's latest platform, Dash - three years old and shiny new.